Golden Globe to honor Woody Allen

LOS ANGELES--American director Woody Allen will be honored with the Cecil B. DeMille award for his contribution to cinema, the organizers of the Golden Globe Awards said on Friday.

Allen, 77, best known for his 1978 film “Annie Hall,” for which he won Oscars for best director and best original screenplay, will be honored at the annual Golden Globe Awards in January, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) said.

The prolific director and writer was chosen for the award by the board of directors of the HFPA, whose Golden Globe Awards honor the year's best in film and television.

“There is no one more worthy of this award than Woody Allen,” said HFPA President Theo Kingma in a statement. “His contributions to film making have been phenomenal and he truly is an international treasure.”

Allen has made more than four dozen films in his 58-year career and is known for his trademark neurotic and comedic characters, many played by himself.

He also won the best original screenplay Oscar for 1986's “Hannah and her Sisters” and 2011's “Midnight in Paris.”

His current film, “Blue Jasmine,” a riches-to-rags story about a mentally ill alcoholic woman, is in U.S. cinemas.

DeMille was an influential Hollywood director who successfully spanned the silent and sound eras of film. Past winners of the award named after him include actors Jody Foster and Robert De Niro, and directors Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese.